A Casa Reale
Upping the antiques
Bastion in Bastia
A Casa Reale is comprised of just four rooms, but it’s lived a life of epic proportions, starring Napoleon Bonaparte, the viceroy of the Anglo-Corsican kingdom, Gustave Flaubert, plus a cast of counts, marquisses, viscounts and a celebrated chef. This luxuriously lived-in bed and breakfast in Corsican port town Bastia, has stayed on the bright side of history for more than 300 years, and during the last five the owners have tirelessly re-dressed the past: restoring the stuccoes, ironwork and flooring; hunting down antiques from Baroque to Empire to mid-century modern; and bringing its stories to light. Blue-blooded as it is, it's a home, so you can comfortably keep company with its titled and talented past masters, and enjoy the same courtesies, with wine on tap, tailored service and a homemade breakfast spread for the ages.
Facilities
Номера
Just four rooms, each named after a different colour with a unique story to tell and decorated with vintage and period furnishings.
Checkout
12 noon, but flexible, subject to availability and 24 hours’ notice, guests can leave later. Earliest check-in, 12 noon; just let the hotel know when you'll be arriving so they can make sure someone is waiting to check you in.
Больше сведений
Rates include possibly one of the best breakfast spreads we’ve encountered, honesty-bar spirits and wines, charcuterie and canistrelli biscuits and items in your room’s mini fridge (water, a bottle of wine and local beers).
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At the Hotel
Wisteria-bedecked sea-view terrace; elegant antique-filled living room with a beautiful Prussian grand piano dating back to 1904 (gifted to King Leopold of Belgium no less); library with rare and antique books; free WiFi. In rooms: TV, storage, fridge, air-conditioning, Isula Parfums bath products.
Our Favourite Rooms
Each of the – just four – rooms enriches the hotel’s story with portraits and antique pieces lending clues to esteemed former residents and momentous events. Say, the Blue Room, dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte; his godfather the Count of Marbeuf resided here in the 18th-century, and on securing young Bonaparte a place in the Brienne military college, hosted him for the night before he left to pursue his storied ascent to emperor. Or the Grey Room, where Viceroy of the Anglo-Corsican kingdom Sir Gilbert Elliot has a portrait hanging over the bed. He moved in with his Lady wife in the late 18th century and held military-band concerts and dances on the terrace overlooking the sea. The Green Room in the attic might be the cosiest; but the sunniness and styling of the Yellow Room (which pays homage to Pasquale Paoli, a founding father of Corsica), with its unique glazed entranceway, and covetable mid-century pieces placed alongside hefty gilded mirrors and dainty chandeliers, which appeals to our lofty aspirations.
Spa
The steam baths of the 19th-century hotel may be gone, but spa spoiling (massages, facials and beauty treatments) can be taken in your room on request.
Packing Tips
You might be pushing your luck with sandwich-board panniers or sky-high boat-pouf wigs, but there’s ample closet space and even the odd dressing room for storing and wrangling more frou-frou outfits.
Also
In 1778 a certain Napoleon Bonaparte stayed here overnight before leaving his home island for the first time. In the 19th century it became Hôtel de l'Europe, run by chef François Tellier, where the likes of Gustave Flaubert dined.
Дети
The private-home feel is ideal for families, as long as your kids aren’t too rambunctious (watch out for toppled antiques). Each room fits an extra bed (the biggest are given to broods), there’s plenty of baby kit, and babysitting starts at €12 an hour.
Галерея
Food & Drink
Top Table
If you can take your eyes off the groaning breakfast-dessert tower and saucy eggs-Benny skillets, then the leafy terrace with its rocking chairs and flash of sea blue is a blissful spot for starting the day. Otherwise get cosy by the kitchen's wood fire.
Дресс-код
Amid the antiques, you might not look out of place here in breeches, epaulettes and pelisses, but even a simple robe would work equally well.
Hotel Restaurant
In the 19th century, when the Casa was a luxury hotel where literary sorts such as Gustave Flaubert and Prosper Mérimée would lunch, and the Duke of Orléans would stop by for wooing and waltzing at the odd ball, it was owned by acclaimed chef François Tellier, whose dishes drew the elite. Nowadays, only breakfast is served, but culinary excellence remains high – the owner’s niece, Rose, upgrades the most important meal of the day to the status of virtually unmissable, giving special deference to the breakfast dessert. Eggs Benedict with pancetta; cheese platters; eggs from the owners’ chicken coop cooked any-way; rosy bowls of fresh-picked berries; house croissants; stacks of honey-drizzled American pancakes; crêpes plump with local Nucellina made in Venzolasca (similar to Nutella) or a homemade caramelised-hazelnut spread using nuts from the owners’ orchard; soft warm pistachio cookies; chocolate babkas; chestnut madeleines; sweetly stuffed frappes (Corsican beignets); caramelised brioches; canistrelli biscuits; yoghurts; fresh juices; and cooked-that-morning breads will set you up nicely for the day, or send you waddling back to bed for a food coma. Rose takes requests too, if you have dietary needs, want to mix up flavourings, or simply if you can’t get enough of something. And each day, plates of seasonally flavoured Corsican canestrelli biscuits are laid out in the salon to keep guests sweet, or you can slice up a charcuterie platter using the saucissons in the fridge.
Hotel Bar
Sidle up to the salon’s bar cart to sample a few Corsican apéritifs (maybe mix up a Cap Mattei with aromatic wine Quinquina, citron, herbs and spices, muscat and vermentinu; or a sparkling Capo Spritz), or grab a chilled bottle of wine from the kitchen’s fridge, where you’ll also find a coffee machine to make espressos, macchiatos, mochachinos and more.
Last Orders
There's a laidback attitude to breakfast timings here because it's a small guesthouse, although loosely timings are between 7am to 11am.
Room Service
Live like the marquises, counts and viceroys who’ve called the casa home by having someone serve laden trays of treats to your room for breakfast in bed.
Planes
Handily, Bastia has its own airport, which is just a 20-minute drive from the hotel, and has good direct connections across Europe and to Morocco (although guests from further afield will need to change). Rose will happily help you to arrange a taxi (usually around €45 one-way).
Trains
Corsica may be an island, but there is a small tangle of train routes. Bastia’s station is just a 10-minute walk from the casa; from there you can ride to fellow port town Calvi, or change for southern hotspots such as Ajaccio or Bonifacio.
Automobiles
Bastia itself is a stroll-by-the-sea kinda place, so you can pump the brakes on hiring a car if you don’t plan to go far. However, the Cap Corse (the island’s little pinky, pointing up to the Ligurian riviera) is best zoomed through, with its dramatic coastal roads, pinnacle villages and under-the-radar beaches. And, you can criss-cross the verdant interior to the cosmopolitan pockets of coast. Since we are located in city center we don't have private car park, but there are free car spaces in our street and streets around, and also an underground toll parking few meters from our house.
Worth Getting Out of Bed For
Set on the Haut-Corse’s eastern coast, below the magical, maquis-greened Cap Corse peninsula and above the wild-boar-roamed Castagniccia sweet-chestnut ‘grove’ (covering more than 100 square kilometres of countryside), Bastia may be a small port city, but it’s a lively one – except during the strictly observed after-lunch siesta – with historic townhouses all the colours of a spice rack. The Casa is just steps from Old Port in the Terra Vecchia part of town (Terra Nova sits a little higher) and the fortified 14th-century Genoese Citadel after which the city’s named. To enjoy a picturesque promenade and stop by both, there’s the 450-metre Aldilonda footbridge which starts at Arinella beach, passes the lift up the cliffs to the fort, gives you an eyeful of Tuscan isles Elba and Capraia, and finishes among the hubbub of the harbour. It’s lovely to walk or cycle along; and in the morning you can watch the boats come in, by day you can pause in the port cafes, and often, come evening, cars are banned so live music, religious festivities and other events can take place. Other lingering locales include terraces in the citadel, botanic beauty the Romieu Garden overlooking the quays (especially romantic at sunset), and the Place Saint Nicolas, a sprawling esplanade with children’s rides, a bandstand for live concerts, statue of Napoleon (because, of Corse), and events throughout the year: flea markets on Sundays, a chocolate festival come October, and an ice rink in winter. The Saint Jean Baptiste church soars dramatically over the port with its two 70-metre bell towers, beyond the Sainte-Marie Cathedral’s elegant cream façade is a blaze of gold and spectacular frescoes, and the imposing hulk of the 15th-century Palais des Gouverneurs houses a charming museum about the city’s past. Need more embellishment? The Oratory of the Sainte-Croix brotherhood, the only Rococo-style religious building in France, throws everything it has at the decor. Arinella Beach has a strip of white sand, and further down, Marana has safe-for-swimming lagoons, sunbathing stretches and fascinating birdlife. Come weekends, farmers turn stalls into lush cornucopias at the market on Place de l'Hôtel de Ville; gather a picnic and head out to hop across the Cap’s villages and beyond. Erbalunga (AKA the ‘nest of painters’) is a paradise for paint-splashers, Centuri is the leading lobster-fishing port in France, so a top lunching spot, Nonza, goes goth with its black-sand beach, and Patrimonio is a wellspring of fine wine. Back at the hotel, get acquainted with the stories behind the antiques: a huge cherub-topped mirror from the apartment of the 19th-century mayor of Bastia Antoine Piccioni (notably Gustave Eiffel's stepson); lavishly carved 18th- and 19th-century chests; Milanese lighting and Saint Ouen chandeliers...
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